Saudi Arabia’s point-of-sale transactions recorded an 11.9 percent growth in the last week of September to total SR13.3 billion, or US$3.4 billion. The food and beverage sector topped the list with spending that category increasing by 28%, to SR2.14 billion. 

The recreation and culture sector, too, saw high spending. SAMA’s latest figures put it at 24.6 percent. It reached SR308.2 million. Next in line were communications, which stood with 21 percent growth, reaching SR116.3 million. 

At the same time, education expenditure has been the largest decreasing sector, down 21.3% at SR100m in this quarter. This decline in education spending has been sustained for more than a month since peaking during the opening of schools on August 18. 

During the same week, Saudis spent SR238.9 million on hotels, whose spending dropped by 18.3% compared to the previous week, while transportation consumption stood at SR741.9 million, which is 2.6% lower. Only three sectors of the economy declined during the period; most of the other sectors increased their spending. 

The largest share of POS transactions occurred in the food and beverage sector, followed by restaurants and cafes at SR1.98 billion and miscellaneous goods and services at SR1.62 billion. Spending in these top three categories accounted for a total of around 43% or SR5.7 billion of the total. 

Geography-wise, Riyadh topped POS transactions with an account of 33.5% of the overall transactions with SR4.49 billion spent-the increase is by 8.4% in the previous week. Jeddah followed with 6.8% that reached SR1.82 billion and has 13.6% of the total. Dammam ranked third at SR658.7 million with a 7.1% increase. 

Tabuk had the biggest increase in spending, up 23%, to SR265.1 million. Hail and Abha trailed, with increases of 22.5% to SR220.9 million and 11% to SR167.8 million, respectively. 

In terms of transaction volume, Tabuk had the biggest percentage growth at 10.9%, reaching 4,737 transactions, while Makkah had the smallest increase at 2.2%, with a total of 8,204 transactions. 

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